Advancing Gender Equality and Girls’ Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises

The Education Cannot Wait (ECW) Call to Action on Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women and Girls builds on the ECW Case for Investment, launched in May 2021, to shed light on and articulate the urgency to advance gender equality for girls and boys left furthest behind in crises to reach both ECW financing and programmatic goals.

This Call to Action illustrates the disproportionate impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on girls, especially adolescent girls living in crises. It highlights the urgency of investing in gender equality and girls’ education as part of COVID-19 response plans, to mitigate both climate and human made crises, and to ensure peacebuilding, recovery and social cohesion. It also focuses on the intersection of gender with other forms of discrimination, focusing on the most marginalized girls, such as girls with disabilities and girls in displacement.